By Stefan Coerts

The Real Madrid attacker was pleased with les Bleus' performance on Friday, and was happy to play an important role in his side's win

Karim Benzema has voiced his delight with France's 1-0 victory over Finland in Friday's 2014 World Cup qualifier.

The Real Madrid striker played a key role in les Bleus' win as he set up Abou Diaby for the only goal of the game, and Benzema feels he is slowly starting to hit top form again.

"We need to continue in this vein. Both in attack and in defence, we started very well and we opened the scoring early. We were less good in the second half but we rolled up our sleeves and fought hard," Benzema was quoted as saying on the Ligue 1 website.

"I'm very happy to have set up Abou Diaby. For me, an assist is the same as scoring. I felt good out there. I'm starting to come back, get stronger, but the most important thing is that everyone played well tonight.

"It was a good game against a good team that defended very well and also tackled pretty hard. There were some moments when we struggled, but we held on and we won."